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132 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
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their
subjects how to convert this elegant material into articles of
decoration stamped with their own more refined taste ; most interesting
examples of which were discovered in two stone coffins found at some
depth beneath the principal entrance of S. Gereon, at Cologne, during
the repairs going on there in 1840. These are conjectured to have been
a complete set of ornaments belonging to a priestess of Cybele, and
consist of two hair-bodkins, with heads formed out of pine-cones,
almonds (beads), trefoils, bracelets, rings, a half-crotalon with a
Medusa's head upon it,·—in all, 26 articles.
The
intagli in Jet however, antique and mediaeval, palmed off in such
quantities of late years upon English antiquaries, are nothing but.
impudent recent forgeries, with no ancient precedents whatsoever.
It is not altogether foreign from this subject to adduce a fact of which few are aware, that the use of Goal for
fuel can be traced back to the early times of Greece. Theo-phrastus,
treating of the Anthrax (16), has: "But those which are properly named Coals, on
account of the use made of them by the luxurious, ignite and burn
exactly like charcoal. They are found in Liguria in the same region as
the Amber ; and also in the territory of Elis, on the mountain-road to
Olympia ; and these are used by the blacksmiths for fuel."
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